The political, economic and social transitions witnessed in 18th century

India have been subject to great historical debate. Most historians view this
century as marked by two important transitions – (i) in the rst half of the 18th
century the decline of the Mughal empire and the rise of regional political
orders and (ii) in the second half of the 18th century post the battle of Plassey
(1757) and Buxar (1764) a transition in the society, economy and polity of India
occurred, as the English East India Company began to assume political control
in north India.

The debate regarding the rst half of the 18th century revolved around the
reasons for decline of the Mughal Empire and the nature socio-economic
change that followed. Two broad views can be outlined –(i) Dark Age view-the
rst and earliest view held that political collapse of the Mughal Empire in the
early 18th century, initiated a process of economic and social decline across
India, and thus the 18th century was a “Dark Age”. (ii)The second view held by
Revisionists historians, viewed the period on its own terms, looked at political
turmoil in terms of regional assertiveness, due to economic prosperity noted by
them in the 18th century. Thus they studied the rise of regional polities and
regional economic prosperity to challenge the “Dark Age” view and the
causal links it draws between political and economic decline. The debate
regarding the second half of the 18th century revolved around whether colonial
rule had roots in pre-colonial economy and society as Revisionists argue or if it
marked a politico-economic break with pre- colonial India as historians who
propose the ‘Dark Age view’ argue.

DEBATE I- VIEW I- DARK AGE VIEW

The earliest views on reasons for Mughal Decline and the “Dark age” character
of the 18th century were presented by historians, Jadunath Sarkar, William
Irvine, Ishwari Prasad and Sri Ram Sharma. They held individual character
of rulers and their administrative and religious policies as responsible for
Mughal decline. Thus, Jadunath Sarkar held Aurangzeb’s religious policy and
Deccan Campaigns responsible for imperial decline. He said that peasant
rebellions of the 17th century were a “Hindu reaction’’ to Aurangzeb’s Muslim
orthodoxy, destroyed the Mughal polity and caused the subsequent decline of
Mughal economy, institutions and society. Prasad and Sharma held that the 18th
century was an economically crisis-prone period.
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 Marxist interpretations : From the 1950s, Marxist historians explained
Mughal decline in materialist terms. Some arguments revolved around the
institutions of jagir and mansab. Thus Satish Chandra argued that structural
aws in the functioning of the Mughal institutions of jagir and mansab led to a
scal crisis in the late 17th century. The ef ciency of these institutions
depended on availability, collection and distribution of revenue, when this
began to falter from Aurangzeb’s time it led to and heralded imperial decline.
M. Athar Ali holds that a shortage of jagirs caused by political expansion of
the empire into less fertile tracts of the Deccan and also an increase in the
number of nobles, without a proportionate increase in their jagirs led to
administrative and economic decline. John. F. Richards critiqued Ali’s view
with his study of Mughal administration in the Deccan he concluded that there
was no shortage of usable jagirs in the region, and this couldn’t have led to an
imperial crisis. Satish Chandra revised his argument and linked it to an
economic argument that, few and infertile jagirs led to an increasing
discrepancy in estimated revenue (jama) and actual revenue (hasil) which led to
a decreased ability of state of cials to collect revenue regularly, thus fuelling a
scal crisis.

Econimic stand : Amongst the economic decline arguments Irfan Habib’s view
is one of the strongest within the “Dark Century” conceptualization. Habib
says that Mughal Empire was highly centralized, from Akbar’s time
onwards. This centralization was seen in the universal land tax, systematic
revenue assessment and collection, with a share going to zamidars, as well as
highly uniform revenue tenures and revenue collections from far away
territories of the empire. Thus Habib says the administration was a dominant
factor in the economy.

• Role of zamindars and jagirdars: Looking at the 18th century, Habib

argues for economic decline. He says from the late 17th century as Francois
Bernier observed there was a process of economic decay in India, due to
unrestricted authority of the jagirdars who were assigned lands for
unpredictably short tenures by the emperor. Accepting this view Habib
argued there was an increased pressure for revenue by jagirdars, which led to
a ight of peasants from land, peasant uprisings against the State and a
breakdown in collaboration between jagirdars and zamidars, as the zamidars
became leaders of peasant uprising. This led to an agrarian crisis and
subsequent weakening of the political edi ce. With regards to localization of
power and administration Habib argues that administrative checks collapsed
in the early 18th century.
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• Regarding trade and urbanization, he says during the Mughal period there
was a growth of urbanization and trade, with a large transfer of rural surplus
to the towns and its conversion into craft commodities and services to meet
the demands of an essentially town based ruling elite. There was also large
availability of capital and a developed system of banking and credit. Habib
argues that decline of any of these factors as the empire declined would have
led to commercial and urban decline. He also cites Ashin Das Gupta’s study
of the fall of the Guajarati port of Surat and Bengal shipping.

• State formation: Habib also discussed economic conditions present under

local polities in India which he divided into two categories- (i) States created
out of Mughal of cials turning into local rulers-Jaipur, Bangash, Nizamates
of Deccan, Awadh, Bengal- and (ii) States created by opponents to Mughal
power- Marathas, Jats, Rohillas and Sikhs.

Cultural decline: Athar Ali locates Mughal decline in a cultural

context. He argues that the decline was caused by the cultural failure of the
ruling elite to respond to the superior technology and science that Europe
developed between 1500-1700. He says those regional polities in India, such as
Mysore and the Marathas which attempted to bridge this gap,failed. Haidar Ali
and Mahadji Sindhia tried to organize their armies on modern lines with French
help.Yet Ali says within the intellectual sphere they failed as they didn’t
establish schools or institutions to absorb western learning. Thus these regimes
continued with the Mughal ideological apparatus.

Continuities: Looking at the economic context of the 18th century, Ali argued
that the new regional polities preserved essential features of Mughal land
revenue system combined with possession of revenue rights with private
zamidari rights. Thus the fundamental nature of the State was still remained that
of a rent extracting one. This necessitated the association of rulers with
merchants, to collect land revenue. Other continuities from Mughal times is
seen in maintenance of courts on a local scale, large armies, large proportion of
agrarian surplus owing into towns. Yet he notes a decline in urban centres such
as Delhi and Agra, and the rise of new ones like Faizabad and Lucknow. Over
all Ali concludes that there was resilience in the economy, but there was no real
growth or new elements as revisionists like C.A. Bayly suggest.

Both Athar Ali and Irfan Habib, argue that regional polities specially the
Marathas and Sikhs continued the exploitative tendencies seen under the
Mughals. Their analysis explained regional political realignment within the
framework of the Mughal “agrarian system” and focused on revenue structures.
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Yet Athar Ali, who is a proponent of decline like Habib, criticised Habib’s
arguments also, saying that they represent an old simplistic historical view, that
the decline of the Mughal Empire was a major socio-eco- political setback for
India which enabled the British conquest to take place.

VIEW II- REVISIONIST VIEW

CRITIQUE AND REVISIONIST STAND

The view that the 18th century was a “Dark Age” has been criticized by
many historians, specially the Revisionists who present the second view on this
debate. Revisionist works focused on the socio-economic functioning of
regional polities and pioneered in depth studies on trade and mercantile
activity.

Society: Historians Herman Goetz and Bernard Cohn focused on the society
in the 18th century. Goetz analysed 18th century music and architecture and
argued for the resilience of Mughal society, re ected in evolving music and
architectural styles despite imperial decline. Cohn studies Banaras and analysed
efforts of Mughal zamidars and alimdars, who manipulated imperial and
regional power to carve out independent areas of power for themselves. These
works also critiqued Irfan Habib’s conception of the Mughal state as a
centralized state.

Muzaffar Alam: Within factors for the decline of the Mughal empire and state
formation of regional polities, Muzaffar Alam’s study critiqued Irfan Habib’s
view that zamidars led uprisings of oppressed peasants which were responsible
for state formation. His study of Persian sources, to understand aspects of
agrarian uprisings in north India, focused on three regions-(i) Moradabad-
Bareilly,(ii) Awadh and (iii)Banaras region. He quotes the Ain-i-Akbari to show
that various castes and communities held zamidari rights in these regions, e.g.-
Rajputs, Jats, Brahmans, Muslims, Afghans, Kayasthas and Kurmis. Yet he says
that not all these groups rose against the Mughals. He points out that due to
caste, clan and territorial distinctions, zamidars were not uni ed in their
rebellion against the Mughals, but were infact at war with one another. Finally
critiquing Habib, Alam points out that zamidars who led raids expressed the
anger of local ruling classes, who had their military contingents and were rising
in a context of local economic prosperity. He also says at times, peasants
resisted zamidars, since rural populations was a victim of zamidar revolts.
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 Alam also argues for a context of local economic prosperity which led to
zamidar ascendency. In his study of Awadh, He says villages and zamidars had
great availability of money. New towns came up, indicating expansion of trade
networks. He says Banaras in early 18th century witnessed the rise of 3 new
market centres and new grains markets aorse, pointing to rise in
commercialized agriculture. Banaras was the most prosperous city by the 1740s
in the region. The Ain-i-Akbari showed an 85% percent rise in agricultural
revenue collected from Awadh in early 18th century, indicating agrarian
prosperity. Thus Alam contests the economic decline model.

However Alam’s study has been critiqued from within the revisionist
camp by John. F.Richards and V.Narayana Rao who like Alam himself, point
out his exclusive use of Persian sources which may hamper evidence of
resistance against Mughal rule found in vernacular sources. Athar Ali critiques
him for comparing Ain-i-Akbari’s jamadani gures with that of 18th century
revenue gures, which show a rise without adjusting them to the rise in prices
in 18th century. Ali says it’s incorrect to use this as evidence for agrarian
prosperity.

Other revisionists such as Ashin Das Gupta, B.R. Grover and Karen
Leonard focus on regional shift of trade and banking institutions, which
earlier studies of Habib and Ali ignored. Das Gupta argued that inland trade
increased, even in a period of some decline, and corporate mercantile
institutions survived. He says though former ports like Surat and Masulipatinam
declined with low international trade, new colonial ports-Madras Bombay and
Calcutta arose. B.R.Grover looked at rural commercial production, found new
provincial markets rose to absorb rural commercial production, thus
compensating the loss in foreign trade. Karen argues that merchant activity
shifted from Delhi to regional territories and led to local economic buoyancy.

Frank Perlin’s study of the Maratha state argued that the characteristic
feature of Maratha state building was high commercialization. He also says that
the new political orders arose due to an interrelationship between two force-
(i)centralizing state building and (ii)Local communal forces. Perlin critiques the
view that political decline led to economic decline. He argues that political
decentralization and localization of power went hand in hand and this was seen
in rise of new political orders (Marathas, Nizam’s in Hyderabad).

One of the most important revisionist views was provided by

C.A.Bayly. Bayly argues against the Dark Age position. He argues that certain
regions like Awadh and Banaras witnessed urbanization and agricultural
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expansion. Regional centres like Bengal and Lucknow grew and so did the
textile industry. He also argues that indigenous capital didn’t shrink but was
engaged in internal bulk and luxury trade along new routes and in nancing
military and revenue machineries. He also points out Mysore, southern
Malabar, Hyderabad and Maratha territories also were nodes of agricultural
stability and state formation. Yet he doesn’t postulate a universal economic
growth in the 18th century. In some areas of decline existed. He also critiques
the views of Habib and Ali who ascribe decline only to political factors and
don’t explore ecological and economic forces. He also questions Habib’s
assumption that the Mughal state and economy was highly centralized.
Secondly he critiques Habib’s assumption that universal economic decline was
due to rising zamindar power at the expense of the State. Bayly says the
interesting facet of the 18th century was that the zamidars and intermediaries
established a closer control of the peasantry and artisans than under Mughal
hegemony, and the mechanisms of control differed in various kingdoms. He
also critiques the view that the British assumption of diwani rights destroyed all
socio-economic forces unleashed in the 18th century-i.e. wiped out a possibility
of British rule building upon a pre colonial past.

Finally Burton Stein another revisionist, focused on formation of

south Indian polity of Mysore, presented a different view for the rise of this
state. He attributed it to “military scalism” and the subsequent thrust towards
centralization, which resulted in the state being freed from control of the local
aristocracy and putting together an extensive tax base and a state organised
around war. He asserts that the 18th century had a dynamic economy and there
was a relocation and restoration of high economic production even in war torn
economy. He agrees with Bayly on the developments of new economic
relations- commercialization of rights, investment of capital in new areas,
coercion of labour by intermediaries.

The various views on the 18th century help us to conclude, that

even though the “Dark Age” view has been critiqued extensively and doesn’t
seem to hold in light of Revisionist studies which pioneered work on regional
polities, local economies and social recon gurations it is also important to note
value earlier works which explored the impact of Mughal decline on the 18th
century and their economic data, which some revisionists tend to negate.
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